The New Beginning

Friday, June 08, 2007

Alison Krauss

with Union Station, CMA 2005

Man of Constant Sorrow

with the Chieftains, Molly Ban

A Living Prayer

When You Say Nothing At All

MV

Carolina in My Mind

Missing You

check
official website for Alison Krauss and Union Station
Grand Old Opry Members

Thursday, June 07, 2007

You won't see these people at BC's commencement

At least that is my guess.

A press release from the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts:

Novelist Ron Hansen named 2007 Commencement Speaker
Historian John Lukacs and Theologian Robert F. Taft SJ to receive honors

(Merrimack, New Hampshire) -- We have an exciting line-up for the Commencement exercises. Acclaimed novelist, essayist, and professor, Ron Hansen, will deliver the commencement address on May 13, 2007. Mr. Hansen has authored nine books, including: 'Desperados', 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford', 'Hitler's Niece', 'Atticus', and 'Mariette in Ecstasy'. He also has published 'Nebraska', a collection of short stories, and 'A Stay against Confusion', a collection of essays on the connection between writing and faith. 'Atticus' was a 1996 finalist for the National Book Award, and 'Mariette in Ecstasy' won both the Bay Area Reviewers Association prize and the Gold Medal for Excellence in Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California.

The Assassination of Jesse James has been adapted into a film version starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. It is set to be released by Warner Bros. in September 2007. Hansen's novelized life of the Jesuit Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins will be published early next year.

A native of Omaha, Nebraska, Mr. Hansen earned his Bachelor's degree in English from Creighton University. He undertook graduate studies at the University of Iowa and Stanford University.

Mr. Hansen holds the Gerard Manley Hopkins S.J. chair of Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University, where he serves as a professor in the English department. Married to fellow writer Bo Caldwell, Mr. Hansen was recently ordained as a permanent deacon in the Roman Catholic Church.

The College will bestow Mr. Hansen an honorary doctorate in recognition of his significant contributions to literature.

In addition to Mr. Hansen, Thomas More College will honor two other scholars for a lifetime of academic distinction and contribution to the humanities: Professor John Lukacs and the Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Robert F. Taft, S.J.

Dr. Lukacs, a Hungarian native, is a celebrated historian of the twentieth century. His original scholarship spans the nature of historical thinking, the origins of the Cold War, World War II and the imposing figures of that period--Stalin, Roosevelt, Hitler, and Churchill--and populist movements in America and abroad. An author of nearly thirty books, including the bestselling Five Days in London, Dr. Lukacs has also written hundreds of articles and reviews on history and politics.

From 1947 to 1994, Dr. Lukacs was professor of history at Chestnut Hill College in Pennsylvania. He also chaired the history department from 1947 to 1974, and has served as a visiting professor at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, and the University of Budapest.

The Right Rev. Robert F. Taft S.J. is the retired Professor of Oriental Liturgy at the Pontifical Institute in Rome (1970-2002), where he also served as Vice-Rector from 1995-2001. Widely-recognized as the world's leading expert in the field of Oriental liturgies, Father Taft has also, since 1974, been Visiting Professor of Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame and was the past Director of the Graduate Program in Liturgical studies there from 1977 to 1979.

A prolific writer, Father Taft has written and edited thirty-five books and published over seven hundred articles on subjects ranging from Eastern liturgies to broader ecumenical questions. In 1998, Metropolitan Stephen Sulyk elevated Father Taft to the rank of Mitred Archimandrite in recognition of all his scholarly and pastoral contributions to the Eastern Churches. Likewise, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople has bestowed a similar honor upon him.

As we get closer to the May 13, further details will be forthcoming on events surrounding graduation exercises. For further information about the College, please visit our web site: http://www.thomasmorecollege.edu/

NCW — Ron Hansen
www.unl.edu/nsw/faculty.htm
Novelist Is a Rare Catholic Voice in Literature
The Dick Staub Interview: National Book Award Finalist Ron Hansen ...
Santa Clara County Library - The Latest SCCoop: Speaking Volumes ...
Novelist Ron Hansen Explores Faith and Fiction
Bio Stanford University Department of English
SCU faculty page

Interesting, he is a member of the faculty at Santa Clara.

Allan Carlson interview to be published in Salvo

source
Salvo

a snippet:

BC: You argue that socialism gains greatly from the denigration of the family. I agree but don't you find it ironic that so many women, even traditional women, vote for candidates who promise more and more government despite its eroding the foundation of marriage?

Dr. Allan Carlson: Well, the socialist movement plays very effectively on a deep historical problem that many do not recognize. Changes brought about by the industrial revolution have forever complicated family life and the rearing of children. This was a radically new change based on our history before 1800 when the majority of people worked and lived in the same place during their lifespan. Now that's changed completely. Who will take care of the children is an important question in our times. Socialism promises a solution to the problem on everyone's mind. It tells people that the state will ease their burden and take over childrearing and this appeals to many women and some men as well. Of course the joke here, the supreme irony, is that in Scandinavia feminism turned this into a very odd development. Women's work became socialized and transferred to the state. The government then took on the traditional function of the home and family with the state providing child care. Then women, in turn, rejected the private sector and largely took jobs within the government. They continued to do what has traditionally been women's work except now they provide child care for other people's children. Their role has not changed but now they're married to the state.

\

BC, Bernard Chapin, will have a review of The Natural Family Manifesto soon.

Practical Action

formerly the Intermediate Technolgogy Development Group, founded by EF Schumacher
Practical Action Publishing
ITDG - Soluciones Prácticas para la pobreza

Intermediate Technology Development Group
wiki

The Plowboy Interview: E. F. Schumacher

here

The economic theory for which Schumacher is now becoming increasingly famous started to form in his mind in 1955, when he hegan a series of visits to Burma, India, and other developing countries. The trips were set up so that Schumacher could consult with the leaders of such nations and assist in determining exactly what kind of help they needed from the industrialized West.

"It soon became clear," Schumacher says, "that most of thetraditional 'aid' programs were really only a means of collectingmoney fromthe poor people in rich countries to give to the richpeople in poor countries." He was also dismayed to learn thatmost aid programs offered variations of just one quick and easy"solution": Replace your primitive hoes with our tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, and computers.

"But the developing nations did not have the industrial base they needed to support such technologically advanced systems," points out Schumacher "Which meant that this 'answer' we were trying—indeed, are still trying to force down their throats—was no real answer at all. To make the high technology we give them work, they need to make a tremendous capital investment—which they do not have—in fuels and fertilizers and pesticides and spareparts and training programs and complicated machinery . . . almost none of which are now available in such countries. If they want these high technology systems and equipment—and we do teach them to want them—there is only one place they can get such things: from us, and at our prices. What we are doing, you see, is offering the developing nations no real solution at all. We are merely, showing them how to trade one form of bondage for another. "

Something those who are acquainted with "happiness" surveys of various nations can appreciate:

PLOWBOY: But why were the Burmese you met so happy? How could they take so much joy from life when they were so poor?

SCHUMACHER: I asked myself that question. Which led me to a closer inspection of all the conditions we call "poverty". And I quickly realized that the sheer amount of money an individual earns in a year does not necessarily tell you how happy that person is.

During the Great Depression, for example, I saw unemployed workers in England whose whole gait showed they were broken men. Yet their actual cash income from unemployment insurance was more than the income of a Spanish peasant whose eyes shone with manliness, who greeted you with open arms, and who asked you into his hovel to share everything he had.

Eventually I decided that the absolute bottom level of existence—where you don't have enough to even begin to keep body and soul together—should be called misery. The next level upwhere people can reach the fullness of humanity but in a modest and frugal way with nothing really to spare—is actually what should be known as poverty . Then comes sufficiency . . . where you do have something to spare. This was the normal condition of Western Europe for centuries during the latter half of the Middle Ages when, as we know, great cathedrals were built and many advances were made in the arts and sciences. And finally, there is surfeit . . . which is limitless.

A lesson for Mitt Romney and some of the other Republican candidates:

PLOWBOY: That's not what our prevalent economic theory tells us. It very clearly states that more is always better.

SCHUMACHER: Oh yes. The implicit doctrine of development, which has been drummed into our ears for the last half century or so and upon which all of modern society is founded, holds up material wealth as the be-all, end-all of existence. "Do you want to be happy?" it asks. "Then become rich. And do you want to be happier still? Then become even richer. In fact you have not only the right to become rich . . . but the duty! The faster the better. And what is rich? Why material possessions—goods!—of course. The more and the bigger of everything you possess—and the faster you do it!—the better off you'll be. There is no such thing as `enough'. You must always have more, more, more!"

This tenet of life, if anything, is applied even more stringently to nations than to individuals. Which is why we now have this terrible fetish of measuring the gross national product of a country and dividing it by the number of people who live there to get the average income per head. And that figure then becomes the final indicator of the nation's status in the world . . . while the prime object of admiration is not the income level that has already been attained, but its current rate of growth. In other words, more is always better . . . and it's even better yet if you can get that "more" faster than the next country.

Much to be gleaned from this interview for those who cling to globalism.

Trailer: Blood Brothers

A remake of John Woo's Bullet in the Head, but set in Shanghai during the 30s(?).

At Twitch (the trailer itself [55MB])

a trailer in wmv format that was posted a while ago

via MonkeyPeaches

Edward Hadas, Human Goods, Economic Evils

A new release from ISI Books. Scheduled publication date: August.

"Human Goods, Economic Evils does not claim that the basic economic activities of laboring and consuming are the most important things in life, but they are literally vital, and as such deserve to be studied and understood through a morally sympathetic view of human nature. With this in mind, Human Goods, Economic Evils provides both lay readers and policymakers with the intellectual tools necessary to judge what is right and what is wrong about the modern economy, and returns the study of economics to its proper, more humanistic sphere."

The author is a journalist at BreakingViews. His journey of faith.

Society and its problems: The Catholic perspective ...

This book should be compared with The Vocation of Business. Perhaps someone will review both.

Jo Sung Mo MV

with Lee Young Ae...

Making of Hwang Jin Yi

Thanks to SongHyeGyo.net.

Zenit has a new look

Check it out--it's easier to go through the archives now.

Edit: Here is the Zenit announcement.

Cain, what have you done?

Scientists say 'Iceman' died from arrow

Given the position of the arrow, it doesn't seem like a case of friendly fire among hunters. I think someone else really wanted this guy dead, and shot him in the back!

But seriously, I wonder how the scientists reacted when they made this determination. Clinical detachment?

So much for the supposed peacefulness and egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer societies?

More Hobbit houses?

A Hobbit House
Hobbit House Homepage (didn't check this one, since it has a lot of java or something and I didn't want to wait)
Earth Sheltered "Hobbit Hole"
Hobbit House Farmstead - Natural Building - Sustainable Farming ...

A Low Impact Woodland Home

Alison Krauss and Shania Twain

Forever and Always

Shania Twain: You Shook Me All Night Long

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Hayley Westenra, Ave Maria

melody composed by Vladimir Vavilov

And...

Hayley Westenra sings national anthem NZ Memorial Dedication ("God save the Queen" first, then the NZ national anthem)

Cardinal Bertone on Pius XII (Part 2)

Cardinal Bertone on Pius XII (Part 2)

"He Had Before Him a World in Thrall to Violent and Irrational Passions"

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 6, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the second part of a speech given Tuesday by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone at the presentation of a book by Andrea Tornielli, "Pio XII: Un Uomo Sul Trono di Pietro" (Pius XII: A Man on the Throne of Peter).

Part 1 was published Tuesday. Part 3 will be published on Thursday.

* * *

4. A Very Precise Historical Period

It seems useful to me to underscore how Tornielli's book calls our attention again to some things already known by serious historians. I think that this is one of the valuable points about the volume that we are discussing here: It takes account of the difficult times in which Pope Pacelli lived, the Pope whose voice did not enjoy the favor of the powers that be during World War II or during the succeeding period in which the opposing political blocs faced off against each other. How many times did Vatican Radio "not have the requisite electricity" to make the Pontiff's voice heard; how many times was there "a scarcity of paper" to reproduce his thoughts and uncomfortable teachings; how many times did some accident cause issues of L'Osservatore Romano to be "lost," -- issues that carried clarifications, updates, political notes ...

Nevertheless, today, thanks to modern means, those sources have been amply reproduced and been made available. Dr. Tornielli has sought them out and found them and the great body of notes in his book is a testimony to them.

At this moment I would like to draw your attention to an important period. The figure and work of Pius XII, praised and thanked before, during and immediately after World War II, began to be scrutinized by different eyes during a very precise historical period, from August 1946 to October 1948. After "the persecutions of a fanatical anti-Semitism that were unleashed against the Jewish people" [Allocution of August 3, 1946], the desire of the tortured people of Israel to have their own country, their own secure refuge, was understandable.

But it was equally understandable that those people who already lived in Palestine also had rights and expected respect, attention, justice and protection. The newspapers of the times provided ample coverage of the tension that was beginning to manifest itself in that region, but because they did not wish to consider the reasoning and proposals of Pius XII, they began to take positions some on one side, some on another, and thereby transformed the Pope's reflection -- that was attentive to the criteria of justice, equity, respect, and legality and developed in an articulate way -- into ideology.

Pius XII was not only the Pope of the Second World War, but a pastor who, from March 2, 1939, to October 9, 1958, had before him a world in thrall to violent and irrational passions. From that moment forward, there began to take shape an incomprehensible accusation against the Pope, namely, that he did not intervene as he should have on behalf of the persecuted Jewish people.

In this connection it seems to me important to recognize that, in any case, those who are free of ideological designs and are lovers of the truth, are well disposed to more deeply understand, in complete sincerity, a long, fruitful, and to my mind heroic, papacy. An example of this is the recent change of attitude at the great sanctuary that is Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to reconsider the figure and work of Pope Pacelli, not from a polemical perspective but from a historically objective angle. It is a fervent wish that such publicly manifested goodwill will have an adequate follow-up.

5. The Duty of Charity Toward All

June 2, 1943, on the occasion of the feast of St. Eugene, Pius XII publicly expounded the reasons for his attitude. First of all, Pope Pacelli speaks again of the Jewish people: "The rulers of nations must not forget that he who 'carries the sword' -- to use the language of sacred Scripture -- cannot decide the life and death of men except in accord with the law of God, from whom all authority comes."

"You cannot expect us," Pius XII continues, "here to recount point for point all that we have tried to procure and accomplish to mitigate their sufferings, to better their moral and juridical condition, to safeguard their inalienable religious rights, to bring help in their sufferings and necessities. Every word to this end that we addressed to the competent authorities as well as each of our public allusions had to be weighed and measured by us in the very interest of those who were suffering, so that we should not unwittingly make their situation more grave and unbearable. Unfortunately, the visibly obtained improvements do not correspond to the maternal solicitude of the Church on behalf of these particular groups that are subjected to the most bitter misfortunes, and the Vicar, [who] asking only for compassion and a return to elementary norms of law and humanity, has found himself, at times, before doors that no key could open."

Here, in the middle of 1943, we find revealed the reason for the prudence with which Pacelli conducted himself in public denouncements: "in the very interest of those who were suffering, so that we should not unwittingly make their situation more grave and unbearable."

These are words that to me seem to be echoed in the brief address given by Paul VI on Septempber 12, 1964, at the catacombs of Santa Domitilla. On that occasion Pope Montini said: "The Holy See abstains from more frequently and vehemently raising its legitimate voice in protest and outrage, not because it ignores or neglects the reality of what is happening, but out of Christian patience and so as not to provoke worse evils."

In the middle of the 1960s, Paul VI was referring to the countries behind the Iron Curtain, governed by totalitarian communism. He, who was a close collaborator of Cardinal Pacelli and of Pope Pius XII, thus adduces the same reasons.

Popes do not speak with the idea of pre-constituting a favorable image for future ages. They know that the fate of millions of Christians can at times depend on their every word; they have at heart the fate of men and women of flesh and blood, not the applause of historians.

Robert Kempner, a Jewish lawyer and public official at the Nuremberg trials, wrote in 1964, after the appearance of Hochhuth's "The Deputy": "Any propagandistic position that the Church would have taken against Hitler's government would have not only provoked suicide ... but it would have hastened the execution of still more Jews and priests."

[Translation by ZENIT]

Relocalization Network

website

Global Public Media audio files on relocalization

2 Haley Westenra vids

After some editing, there's more than two. Oh well.

Abide by Me

Prayer (live)

Mary, Did You Know, Song of Praise

I've posted this one before...
Across the Universe of Time

alt

It is said that she's Catholic. May she be more devout than Charlotte Church.

63rd Anniversay of D-Day

General Eisenhower gives the order of the day "Full victory - Nothing else" to paratroopers in England just before they board airplanes in the first D-Day assault.

Pentagon chief honors D-Day troops
The National D-Day Memorial Foundation

Photos: Song Hye Gyo

Philip Johnson, Rebels in Rome

Rebels in Rome
The Catholic Church and the Confederacy in Civil War America
Philip Gerard Johnson

The Mogambo Guru, Forced to eat higher food prices

Forced to Eat Higher Food Prices
"Up to now, the price inflation was the 'fun' kind, as it went into stocks, bonds, housing…Now inflation is showing up in the "not fun" category, namely food and stuff you have to buy just to stay alive."
by The Mogambo Guru